


Relief of Aesop’s The Fox and the Lion

by PaxDuane



Series: By Writ and Lips [7]
Category: Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Curses, I did not expect any of these pairings, I want him dead, M/M, Other, Priest AU, Protective Magic, Sheev Palpatine is a dick, Touch-Starved CC-1010 | Fox, implications of abuse in military and political contexts, implied mental manipulation, kind of, musings on Coruscant, so many Corries have names that start with Th, writing this made me fall in love with Fox
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-08
Updated: 2020-07-08
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:33:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25154020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PaxDuane/pseuds/PaxDuane
Summary: When on a jaunt with LT Jesse and Captain Rex to pick up some 501st who spent the night in the Coruscant Guard's version of a drunk tank, Dogma meets a forgotten goddess who warns him of a danger to his vode. Jango taught him just the trick for this, and the little goddess has some of her own.So what if he gets a little side tracked by the utterly exhausted Commander of the Guard? He can still do his job as a Priest.
Relationships: Anakin Skywalker & Dogma (Star Wars), CT-5385 | Tup/Original Character, Dogma (Star Wars) & CT-5385 | Tup, Dogma (Star Wars) & Jango Fett, Dogma (Star Wars)/CC-1010 | Fox, mentioned
Series: By Writ and Lips [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1805827
Comments: 13
Kudos: 96





	1. Before

**Author's Note:**

  * For [WhiteTigress](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhiteTigress/gifts).



> A gift for WhiteTigress, who won the guessing game of Dogma's original name. It then got completely away from me.
> 
> But! Pelidate is, in looks, inspired by the look of a white tiger. Completely made up for this fic, versus some of the other gods I've created before I ever wrote about them. 
> 
> Warning for discussions and implications of physical and sexual abuse, mental manipulation, and general Sheevy-ness.
> 
> This is also the first two-parter in By Writ and Lips. And it's getting a follow up, but there's a couple things I want to establish before then.

Dogma hums from the front desk of the Coruscant Guard office. Ostensibly, he’s here while Captain Rex and Lieutenant Jesse bargain for getting a bunch of shinies out of the drunk tank. Dogma was pretty relieved that he’d stuck by Jesse last night instead of going to 79s with the others, as usual. Tup, unfortunately for them, was stuck there as one of the few who hadn’t gotten absolutely smashed but still were caught up. Dogma had caught the words “seduced a member of the Guard who is also in lockup, for his sins.” Hod thought that was hilarious.

The clone in charge of the front desk has gone for caff, leaving the front of the office to him.

Coruscant felt strange. The buildings, hundreds if not thousands of feet from the crust of the planet, echoed with resentments and secrets. He could tell, because the gods who handled those kinds of things sounded clear as a bell through the city-planet. But it wasn’t original. No one here was really original. Hod and Kad and even Arasuum had told him and Boba stories about what Coruscant was originally, of the forests and oceans, of the ways the Zhelli and the Taung interacted, sometimes fighting and sometimes friends.

He feels a poke through his armor and looks down.

It’s a little girl, maybe standard hume 10, with dark skin smudged with dirt and hair as light as the Coruscant sun. Her eyes are wide, with pale blue irises. And white pupils.

“You’re a Priest,” she says, holding tight to a white and black stripped Tooka doll that has seen better days. Probably hadn’t had a good life until she picked it up. “And you’re a vod, right?”

Dogma looks down at her, at the way the aether warps around her. He responds in kind. “I am, to both.”

The girl grins. “You know the Fox vod?”

Commander Fox?

‘Not… well, but I do,” Dogma replies, nodding.

“He’s pretty,” the girl confides. “His soul is like being back under the trees and leaves, with the sun coming down. But he’s not a Priest. He’s not anywhere close. But I like him! I think, if he stays here and has a family, one day I might get a Priest again, and maybe I’ll grow up again.”

Dogma kneels down to be at her eye level. “What’s your name?” he asks.

She grins, teeth sharp as a nexu. “I’m Pelidate. Who do you call to?” she asks.

“Hod Ha’ran,” he tells her.

Her eyes light up. “Then you’re perfect! Look, there’s something wrong and I need your help. It’s wrong with all of the vode here in this office, but it’s worst on the Fox vod. Can you help him?”

Dogma raises his eyebrows. “That depends on what I need to do? What’s wrong?”

Pelidate scowls, showing the sharpest of her teeth. “That fancy man who thinks that just because he has the Force he can do what he wants. Bah, even the Je’daii here don’t think that! But this one, he pulls and pulls at the vode here. He keeps pulling the Fox vod’s soul nearly out of his body with these orders! We need to fix it.”

It’s a problem, all right, and it’s only Dogma’s education as a Priest that keeps him from gaping, from panicking, from asking more questions that Pelidate won’t care to know the answers to. “That’s very bad,” he agrees, “We need to fix it. What’s your plan? We can’t just kill the one doing this, I’m afraid.” As much as he wants to defend his brothers who can’t defend themselves. “If he’s fancy here, then he’s a keystone for many things. We can’t bring those things down on _us_.”

“So, we protect them,” Pelidate determines. She squints at him. “If I bring you the ash, and you bring me something, we can stop that man from taking them.”

“What would you like?” he asks.

She grins and holds up her tooka doll. “I want another one! It needs a friend.”

Well, if Tup doesn’t want Dogma to tell their remaining batchmates just what regs they broke last night, he’ll be more than willing to go by the toy store in the mall where they get Anakin’s droid kits.

She vanishes, and he can feel Hod’s presence at his elbow as he stands back up.

“Goddess of wild things,” Hod says, resting his helmeted chin on Dogma’s shoulder. “She doesn’t like the way the vode are treated, here. She knows you can all be wild, but the Guard are on her world and they’re being broken.”

“They’re still in charge of my vode,” he reminds Hod. “And good soldiers follow orders, or bad things happen to them. Death, beatings…reconditioning.” He shudders.

Hod settles a tight grip on his waist. “Well, the best we can do right now is take away the ability to do the mental conditioning. And I have an idea to make them keep their hands off all of Buir’s children.”

Dogma can feel fire, herbal spice consuming a trachea and clawing at the eyes. It may not kill whoever tries to hurt his vode, but it will certainly make a point. It’s Jango who is good at curses, but Dogma’s never been one to leave a skill unpracticed and unperfected.

Rex and Jesse come out, dragging several shinies and Tup. Tup’s near the back and turns to wave at the poor CG trooper who got caught up in their orbit last night.

Dogma raises his eyebrows at his closest non-Priest vod.

Tup’s bright smile drops.

Dogma falls into step next to them. “I need you to pick some things up for me. I was given a request but I need to be back for the intelligence debriefing this afternoon. If I get it all myself, I’ll never be done in time.”

Tup rolls their eyes. “Fine. Petty mir’sheb.”

Dogma doesn’t show his smile.

***

“What in the galaxy do you need a tooka plush, fifteen different spices, a fruit with a hard shell, a set of eight red candles, and a chocolate bar for?” Tup asks him, setting the shopping bag down next to Dogma in the mess.

Captain Rex, Lieutenant Jesse, General Anakin, Corporals Fives and Echo, and Kix all swivel from staring at the bag to Dogma.

Dogma chews his food and swallows before answering. “Personal project,” he says seriously. Then he pauses. “The chocolate bar is for you for your help, though.”

Tup scowls at him, goes to unwrap the chocolate bar, then pauses to squint at him. “Wait, I remember something like this from when we were in our thirteenth growth cycle.”

Dogma raises an eyebrow at his closest sibling. “Do you remember why?”

Tup is quiet, thinking. Then they remember, horror dawning across their face. “This is what… Who the hell needs this?” they ask, staring with a changed view at the bag of supplies. Another pause. “Wait, what about the tooka?” They hold up a blue and red striped plush.

“She wanted another one to be friends with the one she already has,” Dogma explains easily. “She’s looked like… ten growth cycles. The rest isn’t directly for her, she just wants my help in helping some others.”

Tup whines and throws themself into the chair across from Corporal Echo.

Kix peeks into the bag. “Is this a Jango thing?”

“Yes,” Tup groans at the same time Dogma hums his affirmation. “They taught Dogma after…” Tup’s face closes up and they look to Dogma.

“What is it for?” Anakin asks, curious more about the items than the backstory, something Dogma’s thankful for. It’s probably also because he avoids talking about Jango at all.

“A curse,” Dogma says, shrugging.

Anakin nods, pulling out the fruit Tup had picked to inspect it. “Haven’t seen someone make a curse ball in years. I think I was like seven? Mom got asked to make them all the time back when Gardulla owned us.”

Captain Rex gets that closed off look that he usually does when Anakin talks about his past as a slave. “Why do you need to curse someone?” he finally asks.

“Oh they’re not direct curses,” Anakin interrupts. “They’re protection, kind of. The curse attaches to whoever physically harms the actual target.” He continues perusing the bag. “Oh shit, that’ll be spicy. Are you going for respiratory distress?”

Everyone else looks horrified, though Tup is settling back down.

“For this particular one, yes. Just straight up burning. The ones I made on Kamino were milder and had honey in them.”

“Oh, to slow them down,” Anakin realizes, nodding. “Nice. I can’t do this kind of stuff, Mom could always tell. It’s neat you can, though. Can any of the other vode do it?”

“I could teach Kix, technically,” Dogma reveals.

Kix raises his eyebrows at that, lightning tattoo spreading out.

“Kix would probably be better at it, honestly,” he adds, looking up at the other Priest. “CMO and all.”

“Do no harm,” Kix half-protests. Hypocrite, considering.

“But take no shit,” Dogma finishes, quoting the baar’ur who taught all the medic clones.

Kix scowls, bested.

Jesse’s the one who goes back to Jango teaching him this, unsurprisingly. “Wait, so why did Jango teach you? And you had to use these multiple times?”

“I used them for any trainers that were getting bad,” Dogma reveals quietly.

Tup shifts uncomfortably, the guilt that always comes up when anyone asks about that growth cycle and the one before it bubbling to the surface. It wasn’t their fault, they couldn’t have done anything, so Dogma never understands why the guilt bubbles up.

Anakin glances over at them, then turns back to Dogma. “So. Need any help setting up? I did that plenty.”

Dogma offers his general-turned-vod a tight smile. “I’ve got it.”

***

Dogma has the completed curse ball in a bag alongside the tooka plush and is wearing civvies. Tup is trudging along behind him, annoyed at being further brought into this.

“You get to see your new boyfriend,” Dogma teases, though he keeps his tone deadpan.

Tup flushes. “Hush, you.”

“I just need you to distract the Guard office,” he adds.

Tup is quiet. “The curse target is the Guard. Someone’s hurting our vode. Of course I’ll do it. I just reserve the right to complain.”

Dogma hums.

“And he’s not my boyfriend.” Dogma waits five seconds and Tup adds, begrudgingly, “Yet.”

Dogma chuckles under his breath as they enter the office.

Commander Fox is at the front, staring down a vod who has his helmet off and lights up when he sees Tup. Fox swivels around to see who the intruders are.

“What are you doing here?” Fox asks pointedly, glaring through his visor at Tup.

Tup doesn’t notice the glare, but stutters plenty. It’s probably the half-disappointment half-annoyance radiating off the Commander.

Pelidate appears next to Dogma and looks up at him. “I like the tooka plush, but you should give it to the Fox vod. That way my tooka can visit it like a real friend!”

Dogma glances, ostensibly, down at the plush. Really, he’s looking at Pelidate. “Sorry about them, Commander,” he finally interjects, stepping half between the two vode. “Tup wanted to apologize for the situation which resulted in both them and your officer flagrantly disregarding the regs. They wanted to give this to you as a peace offering, along with a promise to never be the initiating party again. That was the most I could get out of them.” Dogma hands the plush to Fox, who looks at it while radiating pure confusion.

“Well, uh,” Fox says, lost for words for only a few seconds before catching himself. Dogma can respect that. He looks to Tup. “Thank you, trooper, and I do hope you take things a little more seriously.”

Dogma looks back down at Pelidate, who has a large bowl of ash now. Her tooka plush is on top of her head.

“If we put it on the frame of their barracks, it will grace all who enter and stick with them,” she tells him, delighted.

Fox is lecturing both Tup and their new boyfriend, Dogma can see the change, now. Dogma steps through into the open door of Fox’s office.

Hod appears, exchanging greetings with the little goddess, before taking the curse ball and fixing it between the walls. Then he gives a little salute and vanishes again.

Pelidate giggles. “I like Hod, but it’s weird that he’s older than me now. Let’s go!”

Dogma steps back out, followed by her. Fox now has his helmet off and is pinching the bridge of his nose. Tup and New Boyfriend are gone.

“Did I miss something?” Dogma asks.

The Commander swings around, eyes wide. He’s the same age as Commander Cody, it looks, but he’s already got flyaways of gray in his hair. The bags under his eyes are huge, slashes of purple bruises. “I assumed you’d already left.”

“It was awkward, but I didn’t plan on letting Tup walk back to the barracks alone,” he explains. He glances at the door. Ah, young love.

Fox wilts. “That’s smart, but I’m afraid Theed already offered in your absence.” He pauses, more awkward with his helmet off no matter that Dogma can sense what’s going on in there anyways. “I’m waiting for Commander Thorn to relieve me—you shouldn’t walk back alone either, there’s too much…” The Commander grimaces. Dogma’s guessing there has been a new wave of targeted attacks on vode. “I’ll walk you back.”

Pelidate giggles.

Thorn arrives after several minutes of awkward silence. Then, Fox puts his helmet back on and tucks the little tooka plush in a belt bag. They’re about halfway to the collective barracks when Fox falters.

“Sir, have you been getting enough sleep?” Dogma asks, unable to ignore it when Pelidate is frowning heavily at Fox. Besides, it’s a good way to get to the Guard barracks.

“I’m fine,” Fox bites out.

“That’s not an answer, sir,” Dogma insists. Cautiously, with Pelidate urging him on, he takes the Commander by the elbow. “I can easily get back to my own dorm from the Guard barracks. I’m not leaving until you’re in the hands of someone who will make you sleep.”

“You sound like a medic,” Fox says at length.

Dogma bites back a smile. “One of my closest vod is the 501st’s CMO, and Torrent Company’s medic. I suppose the behavior has rubbed off on me.”

Fox even lets Dogma support him, a little, all the way into the Guard dorms. As soon as Dogma gets the Commander settled, he’ll help Pelidate with the doorway.

It seems like most of the Guard is either out relaxing or on duty, though, so he helps the Commander to his bunk, in a dorm shared apparently by Commander Thorn. He can feel the air change around them as he takes off Fox’s helmet, helps the exhausted man with the fiddly buckles on the ARC armor. He moves the tooka plush to the top of the Commander’s locker.

Fox looks half asleep, half keyed up. Not the best way to sleep, Dogma knows.

“Commander?” he whispers, smoothing a thumb across Fox’s cheek. The other clone melts into the touch and a broken sound slips from his lips.

He wonders if, with whoever is taking chunks out of the Guard’s lives, Fox has let himself touch anyone. He sits on the bunk next to the other and pulls him close. Fox isn’t his direct superior, isn’t anyone he works with, isn’t anything like Hod. There’s no connection, besides that Pelidate likes him and wants him to be happy. Dogma runs his fingers through the Commander’s hair, feels him shake from the act of being touched but not hurt.

Hod steps into the room, armor off and staring down at them. “Do you want to?” he asks Dogma, leaning down to kiss him. “If you want to, I’ll help.”

Dogma thinks about what’s being offered, then nods, opens his mouth to the kiss. A flash of startheft goes over his eyes, barely there. Not enough to burn his tattoo onto him but…there. Dogma in control, but with a little extra will behind it.

Then, he bends down to kiss Commander Fox. 


	2. After

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dogma has work to do, to protect the Guard, but that doesn't mean he's going to let Commander Fox beat himself up over what just happened. The aftermath is soft even when it's awkward.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Brief discussion of how consent works in regard to this particular setting, and the regs. In a perfect world, this would have happened before they slept together.
> 
> Also, I love Thorn.

~~~ (Pt 2)

Dogma picks himself up off the bunk after he’s sure Commander Fox is asleep, tossing his pants back on and stepping out of the dorm room to meet Pelidate and Hod Ha’ran in the common room of the Coruscant Guard’s barracks.

Pelidate looks wildly pleased. “Shall we, then?”

The common room is still empty; Dogma is starting to suspect that’s more than good timing.

Hod takes the bowl of ash and Dogma takes Pelidate’s hand, letting the goddess curl into him, her energy spreading so he feels less like a cadet wearing makeshift stilts. Pelidate-and-Dogma take a handful of the ash from the bowl and smear it all along the doorjamb and threshold that leads out into the rest of the barracks complex and further into the Coruscant night. Once it’s covered, he scribbles figures and symbols that are all Pelidate in the upper threshold. Then, he steps back, brushes his hands against each other, and lets the little goddess spin out.

She claps her hands, laughing. “Thank you, Priest. Hod, shall we go catch up?”

Hod smirks at Dogma. “I think we should, vod. Take care of the Commander, cyare,” he says, winking.

Dogma scowls at them as they vanish to do mischief upon the city, then returns to Fox and Thorn’s dorm room. Fox is frowning and twitching—flinching—away from something in his dream.

Dogma sits back on the bunk and smooths his hand over the other’s brow.

Fox’s eyes fly open and he stares up at Dogma, who doesn’t bother hiding his surprise. It’s bad, that the nightmares are bad enough to take him from steadily asleep to near waking in fractal time.

Fox scrunches his nose and rubs at his face. “Trooper?”

“You need to sleep, Commander,” Dogma reminds him, face softening.

But Fox pushes himself up, readjusting to wakefulness. A few moments pass, then he freezes, horror building around him.

Dogma has a feeling he knows what’s coming.

“What did I…?” Fox starts, guilt heavy in his voice.

Dogma presses his thumb against the Commander’s lips. “On my end, at least, what happened here was a completely consensual act that—because it took place in your space and in solitude, did not begin in any manner before we entered the Coruscant Guard barracks, and did not take place between anyone in the same chain of command even if we are not the same rank—did not break any rules or regulations. So, unless you are feeling regret,” _Not_ guilt, “For participating, then you shouldn’t beat yourself up about it.”

Fox stares at him.

“And if you are feeling regret for participating, that is on me because I initiated it,” Dogma adds, recalling his hand.

Fox gapes, a moment, then shakes his head. “No, I…” He laughs, a broken thing that makes Dogma’s heart jolt. “You’re right. Yeah, you’re right.”

Dogma smiles a moment, pressing feelings of comfort and concern towards the other through the aether. Like several other CCs, Fox is Force sensitive. Even though the aether doesn’t work quite the same way, with how it floats above everything and buffers the psychic from the electric, the emotions will eventually filter down through the Force. Then he takes another moment to manhandle to the Commander back down. “You really do need to sleep. If I need to stay here and remind you ever couple of hours, that’s fine.”

Fox exudes confusion but goes down easily. He frowns after a moment, while Dogma lies down beside him. “I don’t remember if you told me your name.”

He did, but he’ll take this opportunity for what it is—for what was offered. He can get back at Hod later, in a way that doesn’t hurt Fox. “Daysh. My name is Daysh.”

***

Dogma falls asleep and Fox doesn’t stir next to him. When he wakes up again, it’s because the light in the room has come back on.

Commander Thorn is staring aghast at him—at both of them. This commander has patterns shaved into his hair like Kix, only they’re the spiky spiral of a rose. Once he sees Dogma is awake, he breaks into a grin.

Dogma, with the excuse he has just woken up, gives Thorn his most unimpressed look. He usually saves that one for when one of the Domino Corporals does something particularly inept.

Thorn flinches, but still grins. That does not bode well for Dogma’s opinion of his personality, because that’s exactly what the Dominos do.

On Dogma’s chest, Fox stirs. In the night, he’s thrown himself half over Dogma, broad shoulder and head resting on the younger clone’s chest and arm curled around his opposite hip. Dogma’s made aware that the hand furthest from the edge of the bed, and Thorn, is resting on Fox’s bare hip under the sheet.

Fox blinks up at his dormmate with a mixture of confusion, annoyance, and mortification. Despite that, he seems much more well rested than even the brief glimpse early yesterday when Dogma went to herd the 501st’s drunk tank adventurers, which is a tragedy. With over six hours of sleep, the bags and bruises under the Commander’s eyes have smoothed away and he looks younger, healthier, and startingly even more attractive.

Maybe it’s that, as the face of the vode to the galaxy, he’s had to learn how to work with the rules, how to bend them only so much and never break them, to step around them to get what he needs to do done. If his blood sang even as loud as Kix’s, he’d be as much Hod’s as Dogma is, even with Pelidate’s favor. Maybe it’s just the way he holds himself as he falls apart, how his armor evokes the temple art that Jango took pictures of for him and Boba the last time they had to go to the Mandalore system.

“Kark off, Thorn,” Fox grosses, glaring at the interloper.

“Have a good night, ori’vod?” Thorn asks, grin aimed directly at Fox before he turns to Dogma. “You got him to sleep. What unit are you in—I want to poach you.”

Dogma feels the corners of his mouth quirk up. “I’m not sure Captain Rex would take that well.” Let alone Fox himself, considering their conversation last night.

Thorn recoils, groaning, and goes to start methodically, if melodramatically, stripping off his armor. “Of course you’re under the blonde bastard. Ugh…” He pauses in taking his chest plate off. “Does anyone from your unit know you’re here?”

That makes Fox sit straight up, and honestly Dogma isn’t too far after him.

“Ossik,” Dogma curses, scrambling out of the bunk for his shirt. “I’m going to get a disappointed look.”

Fox scrubs at his face. “He’s going to skin me. Well—I’m pretty sure he has one of ours so can we swing it that way?”

Thorn looks over curiously. “Who?”

“Theed went off with his sibling,” Fox replies, gesturing to Dogma.

Dogma shoves himself into his (Jesse’s stolen) jacket and tosses Fox his bottom blacks. “Either way, he’ll be suspicious no one let him know.”

Fox catches the bottoms and shoves them under the sheet to pull them on. “Thorn can you call Stone and see if Rex has called in about any missing 501st? With vode being _such easy targets lately_ ,” the last four words are accompanied by a sneer, which just screams that there’s a serial killer that the nat’borns won’t recognize, “He’s probably out of his mind with worry.”

Thorn makes an aborted noise and goes for his comm. “Kriff, I forgot about that. We hadn’t gotten any reports of new deaths by the time I clocked out, so I put it in another cabinet.”

Dogma cocks his head at the man.

“He thinks of his brain as an office with filing cabinets,” Fox explains, getting up and moving around Dogma for his uppers. “I’ll walk you back to the 501st so Rex can chew me out directly.” The Commander does not look happy about that, in the way only an older brother about to be rightfully lectured by a younger brother can. “Let’s just hope he doesn’t tell Cody, for my sake.”

There aren’t any civvies in Fox’s locker, so Dogma picks up pieces of his armor to help him strap it back on. Every time their hands meet, Fox flushes and looks down. It’s cute.

“Stone just had Rex call in. I’ll let him know you’re on your way,” Thorn says, trailing off as he turns to them and watches the little dance. “How haven’t I met you yet?”

Dogma flinches. “This is the first time I’ve dealt with the Guard outside of paintball against Thire’s squad,” he admits, purposefully keeping his voice even.

Thorn’s eyes go wide, looking between Dogma and his brother. “No, serious? You two just met yesterday?”

“Shut,” Fox snaps at him, shoving his helmet on but not before Dogma and Thorn get a glimpse of a violent blush.

“Wait, what’s your name, my new favorite trooper?” Thorn asks, grin slightly teasing. “I want to know who to call to sit on Fox next time the 501st is home.”

Home is Kamino, or anywhere that Jango and Boba are, but he’s not going to mention that. “Daysh. But the vast majority of the 501st calls me Dogma.”

That name, and the phrasing, makes Fox flinch. “Not a name you chose?”

Dogma shrugs. “Neither is, but it hurts less when they tease if they call me Dogma. I like Daysh too much to give it to most people.”

He can tell Fox’s eyes just went wide behind his helmet.

“Well,” Thorn says, awkward, “I’ll let Rex’ika know you’re on your way.”

As he follows Fox out of the Guard barracks, Dogma can feel the power of the ash and the symbols that no one else can see filter down onto Fox’s armor. It turns from the chalky gray of the ash to starshine white, sparkling like the far reaches of space.

“Why trust me with your name?” Fox asks as they near the 501st’s barracks.

Dogma looks at him in his periphery. “I’m sure you can figure it out eventually, Commander,” he says, barely pausing as he enters the common room.

Rex is waiting for them, along with a guilty Tup and Theed.

“Hi Commander, sir,” Theed squeaks.

Dogma shoots as much judgement as he can towards Tup in this situation. It’s…not a lot.

Fox crosses over to Rex. “I’m going to warn you right now that Thorn is still considering poaching him despite knowing it’s a terrible idea.”

Captain Rex, who was looking disappointed, groans in resignation. “Damnit, Fox.”

“Apologies for not comm’ing you that he was with us. Passed out almost as soon as we got into the Guard barracks.”

Fox is very good, it seems, at talking around the parts of the truth that would result in being hit or lectured. Dogma finds it as attractive as he finds it concerning.

“I barely remember anything between leaving the office and Thorn waking us up,” Fox finishes. That’s pretty close to a lie, but, with how exhausted he was, Dogma wouldn’t be surprised if he just had some impressions from their time together. And, hopefully, Dogma’s mini-lecture on how the regs didn’t have ossik to say in this situation.

Rex squints at Fox, then wrenches off the Commander’s helmet in a way that makes Dogma surprised the older clone doesn’t flinch, taking in the very same features that Dogma noticed a change in this morning. “You actually slept, so I’ll not tell Cody that you accidentally kidnapped one of my speedies.”

Fox looks both unimpressed and grateful. “Then I have no reason to tell Cody that one of yours kidnapped one of mine.”

Rex swivels his gaze to Theed. “Yeah you can have him back now, I guess.”

Theed is the one to nod enthusiastically at that, then he gives Tup a kiss on the cheek and runs behind Fox.

“Rex,” Fox acknowledges in farewell, “Dogma, nice meeting you. Don’t let Thorn corner you anywhere.”

“I assure you I won’t, sir,” Dogma says, mostly deadpan. He’s more concerned about Thorn teasing him and wheedling information out of him to use against Fox than any poaching.

Fox and Theed leave the barracks and, to Dogma’s surprise, Rex turns on Tup. Sweet, innocent (yeah right) Tup who, up until this leave, could do no wrong in his eyes. Which, fair. Tup is an incredibly sweet little bastard.

“You left your brother at the Coruscant Guard office to make out with an off duty Coruscant Guard who you quite recently got in trouble with, leaving him in a situation where he could either be a target for a damn serial killer or be at the Guard’s mercies,” Rex scolds. “You’re on KP duty, whenever Eel isn’t, for the next month.” Eel babies Tup too much.

Tup squawks. “What? Captain, I didn’t know about the deaths and I thought he’d gone ahead!”

“Then your little friend in the Guard should have been more worried,” Rex says.

Kix and Jesse come in for that part, followed by Fives and Echo.

“What happened?” Jesse asks, fishing for gossip and concerned all wrapped up in two words.

Rex moves his glare from Tup to Jesse. “LT. What would you suggest for a vod who left their buddy in the middle of Coruscant in favor of making out with a Guard?”

Kix’s gaze slants over to Dogma, frowning in a way that screams that he knows this isn’t hypothetical and that he’s an inch of decorum away from checking Dogma over for any harm.

Well, Dogma thinks, at least it was a productive rotation. No one is going to get away with hurting Fox, or any of the rest of the Guard, again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A few notes. One, as far as everyone but Thorn (and me! :D) is concerned, this is never going to happen again. Two, Fox wasn't in the same cadet squad as the CCs who free-range raised Rex most of the time (Cody's squad) but he did a fair amount with his squad, and that's why he's actually pretty chill with Rex comparatively. Three, Dogma has some hickeys that he's not going to notice until some vode make some noise in the showers tonight. Four, on the other hand, Fox has some hickeys he is Acutely Aware Of. 
> 
> Now, consent is very important to me especially with the power dynamics established by the canon, but there's some balances here that not everyone in the story notices. Still, most of the pairings I'm using are either formerly of the same rank and got together at the same rank (Jessix), the same rank (haven't shown this one yet), primarily pursued by the person of lesser rank (haven't show this one either technically), or of different ranks in completely different chains of command (Foxma, and another I haven't shown but might have mentioned). 
> 
> I'm sure I had some other things but I'm tired...

**Author's Note:**

> Palpatine has no clue the chips are non-functional (discussed in Steganography) so he's chirping along thinking everything is going according to plan. This means he isn't desperate but he's also hardly cautious about the clones. This will eventually backfire off-screen. 
> 
> I didn't expect to ship Dogma/Fox but uh. I do. They mayyyy have inspired an AU idea that then spiraled off into an original fiction idea. Especially with my characterization of Dogma, they have a lot of personality parallels that are just off enough from each other to work well. As for regs? That'll be addressed in the next part. 
> 
> And yes, I considered what happens in between the parts to be somewhat important enough to at least cleave this section of Dogma/Daysh's life in two.


End file.
